From: Chief of Operations
Subject: Proper Narrative Descriptions

It has come to our attention from several emergency rooms that many EMS narratives have taken a decidedly creative direction lately. Effective immediately, all members are to refrain from using slang and abbreviations to describe patients, such as the following.

1. Cardiac patients should not be referred to as suffering from MUH (messed up heart), PBS (pretty bad shape), PCL (pre-code looking) or HIBGIA (had it before, got it again).
2. Stroke patients are NOT "Charlie Carrots." Nor are rescuers to use CCFCCP(Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs) to describe their mental state.
3. Trauma patients are not CATS (cut all to sh*t), FDGB (fall down, go boom), TBC (total body crunch) or "hamburger helper." Similarly, descriptions of a car crash do not have to include phrases like "negative vehicle to vehicle interface" or "terminal deceleration syndrome."
4. HAZMAT teams are highly trained professionals, not "glow worms."
5. Persons with altered mental states as a result of drug use are not considered "pharmaceutically gifted."
6. Gunshot wounds to the head are not "trans-occipital implants."
7. The homeless are not "urban outdoorsmen," nor is endotracheal intubation referred to as a "PVC Challenge."
8. And finally, do not refer to recently deceased persons as being "paws up," ART (assuming room temperature), CC (Cancel Christmas), CTD (circling the drain), DRT (dead right there) or NLPR (no long playing records).

I know you will all join me in respecting the cultural diversity of our patients to include their medical orientations in creating proper narratives and log entries.

• Question: If you could live forever, would you and why? Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever." --- Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest
• "Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but not with all those flies and death and stuff." --- Mariah Carey
• "Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can't remember what they are." --- Matt Lauer on NBC's Today Show, August 22
• "I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law." --- David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes.
• "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." --- Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for a federal anti-smoking campaign.
• "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body." --- Winston Bennett, Univ. of KY basketball forward
• "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." --- Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC
• "We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees." --- Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks
• "I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president." --- Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents.
• "China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese." --- Former French President Charles De Gaulle
• "That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it." --- A Congressional Candidate in Texas
• "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." --- Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle
• "Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind." --- General William Westmoreland

And last but not least-a parting word from Dan Quayle:

10. Visit your local butcher and pay $30 to sit in the walk-in freezer for half an hour. Afterwards, burn two $50 dollar bills to warm up.
9. Go to the nearest hockey rink and walk across the ice 20 times in your ski boots carrying two pairs of skis, accessory bag and poles. Pretend you are looking for your car.
8. For ski boot simulation at home, put a pebble in your street shoes and tighten a C-clamp around your toes.
7. Buy a pair of gloves and immediately throw one away.
6. Go to McDonald's and insist on paying $6.50 for a hamburger. Be sure to wait in the longest line.
5. Clip a lift ticket to the zipper of your jacket and ride a motorcycle fast enough to make the ticket lacerate your face.
4. Drive slowly for five hours - anywhere - as long as it's in a snowstorm and you're following an 18 wheeler.
3. Fill a blender with ice, hit the pulse button and let the spray blast your face. You'd almost believe you're skiing in front of a snowmaker!
2. Dress up in as many clothes as you can and then proceed to take them off because you have to go to the bathroom.
1. Repeat all of the above every Saturday and Sunday. 

• I went to McDonald's. I looked at the menu and saw that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half-dozen nuggets. "We don't have a half-dozen nuggets," said the teenager at the counter. "You don't?" I replied. "We only have six, nine, or twelve," was the reply. "So I can't order a half-dozen nuggets but I can order six?" "That's right." So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets.
   
• A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they asked for a credit card number, so she's using the ATM "thingy".
   
• I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. "Do you need some help?" I asked. She replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenient store) would have a battery to fit this?" "Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm too?" I asked. "No, just this remote thingy," she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries it's a long walk."
  
• Several years ago, we had an intern who was none too swift. One day, he was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier machine paper," the secretary told him. With that, the intern took his last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five "blank" copies.
   
• I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister." I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the "cruise control" and then went in the back to make a sandwich.
   
• My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: "I've got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?"

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• BUCHAREST (ROMANIA) HOTEL: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
• LEIPZIG (GERMANY) ELEVATOR: Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.
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• JAPANESE HOTEL: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
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• SWISS MENU: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
• AUSTRIAN SKI LODGE: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
• POLISH MENU: Salad a dirm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck 1st loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.
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• HONG KONG AD: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.
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• MOSCOW HOTEL: If this is your first visit to U.S.S.R., you are welcome to it.
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• ROMAN DOCTOR: Specialist in women and other diseases.
• CAPULCO HOTEL: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.
• TOKYO GIFT SHOP: Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.
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